Outreach and Service

Due to my publications, national leadership, and ongoing professional development work with/in PSU Helen Gordon Center, I have been able to commence new consultations in early childhood schools across the United States and out into other countries of the world with invitations for this work continuing today.

At national and international levels, I have worked with schools across Tennessee, in Sofia, Bulgaria, in Melbourne, Australia, Houston, Tx, Hawaii, and in Vancouver, BC.  Recently, I have also developed a compensated consultation platform with a school in Beijing. They asked me to bring my “Reggio-inspired mentor school work” from the PSU Helen Gordon Child Development Center to their school and community to help them to develop their own school qualities and offer Reggio-inspired practices in their communities.  The significance of these new layers of work at the international level rests in writing a curricular framework with the Beijing ELC school personnel--a framework that could influence more widely in the Chinese province.  Since 2022, I have begun consulting with George Fox University (GFU) on the planning and development of a laboratory and community-oriented preschool. 

These consultations, keynote speeches and school visitations and professional development sessions have given me an opportunity to advance my most seminal research efforts out into the nation and other parts of the world—where new projects are sprouting given my leadership.

Enjoying the national notoriety, compensation, and the dissemination of my work as widely as possible, I am left desirous to look back in on my own local community.  In the past several years, I have consulted with a small school in Wilsonville, Oregon, and several schools across the Portland metro area, focused on my research and scholarship related to classroom/school practices. I’m continuing my ongoing liaisonship with Helen Gordon Center and working with them to develop their professional initiatives around my documentation, assessment, technology and sustainability research (intertwined with my CCAMPIS grant and my research with Reggio Emilia-inspired practices). And, I am still presiding as President over the Inventing Remida Portland Project (housed in HGC), a sustainability and reuse project for metro area early childhood teachers to learn about repurposing industrial discards into classroom materials. 

Reflectively, my community outreach work with Helen Gordon Center, Remida and in Portland, Wilsonville, Melbourne, and Beijing very poignantly addresses two of my main scholarly goals of creating model early learning centers for children birth through age eight and professionally developing the early childhood teacher toward teaching mastery and leadership.

Here are a few bulleted items related to my service leadership capacity:

Department, College, and University Outreach and Service:

• Curriculum and Instruction Department Chair. (2016-2022). Chaired a department of 12 Programs, ranging from 3 Master's degrees and 4 endorsement/certificates with K-12 General Ed licensure to 2  non-licensure Master's degrees in Early Childhood and in Curriculum and Instruction.

• CI Doctoral Specialization Program Coordinator. (2016-2022). Coordinated the curriculum committee and co-facilitated the scheduling of courses (with 2 other COE Chairs). 

• Faculty Development Grants Co-Chair. (2018-2021). Led PSU faculty enhancement grant committee by facilitating a proposal call, a research proposal intake, a review, determination, and notification to grant recipients (and non), and reporting to Faculty Senate our outcomes of the $675,000 budget dispersement. 

National Service and Outreach:

• NAECTE-Foundation President. (2023-25).

• NAECTE Past President. (2021-22).

• NAECTE President. (2019-21).

• Significant Interest Group (SIG) Chair (2016-2017) and Program Chair (2014-2016). American Educational Research Association, Critical Perspectives in Early Childhood Education SIG.

Recent Consultancies:

• Consultant. (2021-Present). GFU planning and development of Laboratory preschool.

• Pedagogical Consultant. (2022-Present). Childswook workshop series.

Research Outreach:

• Top Reviewer Award. (2021). Recognized by Early Childhood Research Quarterly Journal for “Outstanding Work and Dedication as a Top Reviewer.”

• Editorial Board Member. (2019-Present). Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education.

• Editorial Board Member. (2020-Present). Qualitative Research Journal.